Kay closed and locked the door to his quarters, leaving his brother to what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep, the soft sounds of Elvis, and a note on the bedside table hopefully offering some reassurance for him, if he woke up. "Here." He said as he spotted Agent V from wardrobe coming down the hall. He thrust Sam's clothes, stained with Noah's blood, into her hands. "See if you can get them clean. If not, burn them." Even if she could get the clothes clean, he wasn't sure that Sam would actually be willing to wear them again. Not that he didn't have suits to spare if his brother needed them. And if he actually had a job after what he had just brought into the MIB.
Zed was waiting for him when he reached the medical lab, with Zoe beside him.
"How's your poor brother?" Zoe asked before Zed could say anything. "Zara's helping that nice Agent Elle get that poor boy all fixed up or I would have had her help you with him. Poor dear. He seemed very upset."
"He is. And he's sleeping, at least I hope he's sleeping. Anyway, he's locked in my quarters so he ought to be fine for awhile. Are they already..."
"Took him right back for surgery." Zed told him. "Kay, what happened? What's your brother doing here?"
"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. Jay, Edie or Zara might know more about what happened in the retirement home. They were there. Sounded like from what Zara said that she got a decent look at the shooter. After you called us, we split up to look for the beruga." Kay said as they took seats in the makeshift waiting area that someone had finally got around to installing after tripping over one too many agents pacing while waiting for news on a partner or friend. "Aileen and I headed for this railroad track down the block. Thought it would be a prime target if the thing was still on an iron diet. When we cleared it, we moved on to the cemetery behind it. Thought the gates, or some of the tombstone decoration might have attracted it. We ran into Sam's team and then..." He closed his eyes for a moment, reliving the terror that had washed over him from his brother. If anything happened to that kid... "Elle give you any idea how long it would be before she'll know something?" He shook his head slightly, trying to force away the panic that was washing over him. This would be fine, he knew. He had seen worse, had experienced worse a time or two. He knew it was fixable. 'Sam, would you...'
"I escorted those three humans to the meeting room." Aileen called as she came in. "Although... Kay, are you absolutely sure that the one who's dressed so... unusually is actually a human? I don't mean to question you, but..."
"He's human, although Sam's probably going to want DNA proof of that." Kay said before wincing in pain. Flashbacks, of what had happened to Catherine and the baby hitting him full force. Sam had to be in the middle of a serious nightmare.
"Kay?" Aileen called his name as she came over.
"I... Give me a minute." He couldn't do this, not here. Kay stood and somehow made himself move down the hallway, into one of the treatment rooms. He closed his eyes as he leaned back against the wall. Thirty years he had blocked his brother, walls that had only been knocked down once, but now they might as well have never existed. "Sam." He whispered his name as he closed his eyes, trying to get the walls back up, trying to get control again.
"Kay?" Aileen whispered as she came in. "What's going on?" She hadn't been sure about following him, but at the same time, she knew she couldn't just leave him in the pain he was in, without trying to do something.
"Sam." Kay said after a moment. "He... We always had a link, knew what the other one was feeling, almost knew what the other one was thinking. When I joined the MIB, though..." Joined? Not like he had really had a choice. He'd been basically drafted. Out of all that he had given up, the link with his twin had been one of the worst things to lose. "Link was a liability. If someone got to me, they could have got to Sam, too. For over thirty years, I've been able to block him, except once."
"What happened?" Aileen helped Kay down onto the floor and sat beside him, leaning on his shoulder.
"He was engaged, they were having a baby. Something went wrong. The baby died, his Catherine almost died too." Kay closed his eyes as the fear from his brother washed over him, fear for the boy Elle and Zara were currently trying to save, and the remembered fear and then grief for the son his brother had lost. "Blocking him then was the hardest thing I had ever done." Was something Kay hadn't wanted to do. He had gone to Zed, had actually begged to be allowed to bend the rules, to be allowed to see his brother, but... "Now, I can't..."
"Maybe blocking him isn't what you need to do." Aileen suggested. "Your brother's frightened, right? He thinks he's about to lose a child for the second time. Maybe you need to open up to him, to let him in and show him that this is going to be fine. Kay, you know that poor boy will be alright. You've seen things worse than that be fixed without a problem. I've seen worse things. Let's show your brother that. I'm here. Let me help both of you."
Kay didn't say anything, just reached out, and took Aileen's hand, closing his eyes as he felt her tendrils intwining with his fingers. With a thought, he swept the remains of the walls that had kept his twin out away. 'Okay, Sam, let's see if you'll listen when I show you that boy of yours is going to be fine.'
"Where did Little Ears get off to?" X called as he came into the medical lab.
"She's fixing that poor boy up." Zoe said with a pointed look at her son. "Now, did you get that human settled in? With food? And a drink?"
"The human's settled in with coffee. The worms are fixing up food to take around. Hope everyone likes coffee a whole lot. And you didn't ask Aileen if she had offered refreshments to the humans she got stuck with, did you?"
"Aileen has manners. Really, I don't know where I went wrong with you, sometimes." Zoe said before turning to Zed. "Do you think someone should check on poor Agent Kay?"
"Better give it some time. Kay and his brother are close, at least they were before Kay joined the MIB." Before Kay joined the MIB. They probably would be still, if he had listened to Kay, almost thirty years ago, had been willing to bend the rules instead of being so focused on holding the agency together in the wake of what Alpha had done. And Kay had been the one who had suffered for it. With a shake of his head, Zed forced his thoughts back to the present. "You said you saw something on TV about Kay's brother?" he asked Zoe.
Zoe nodded. "There was something, about him looking for some sort of criminal. Honestly, I thought it might be one of your cover stories, so that he could visit with his brother. Although, now that I think about it, the person he was supposed to be looking for did resemble that young man that I hope my son showed good manners to."
"That guy's supposed to be a criminal? If he is, I want to know how in the world Kay's brother got a better class of criminal." X grumbled. "That one figured out how to turn on the elevators again, after U let the police shut them down, and he helped us get that kid out of there. That doesn't scream criminal to me."
"Zed, I don't think he is." Jay said as he came in, with Edie behind him.
"Junior? Report on what happened out there?" Zed said.
"What happened? We were looking for the beruga. Edie was with me, and Zara tagged along. She said she had experience with them, so I figured it was okay. We tracked it to the nursing home, and found out that it had switched to carbon. I called Kay to let him know what was happening, and then we went after it. Finally ran into the thing on the eighth floor, just as that kid got shot. Zed, there's no way that guy could be the shooter. The beruga tackled me, and then it tried to go after the kid. Guess it thought wounded prey would be easier. Zara tried to block it, but it was pretty determined to make a meal of that boy. That guy grabbed the beruga, pulled it away."
Edie nodded. "Tried to help me get it over to the window so Jay would have a clear shot. Might have worked if it hadn't tried to take a bite out of my hand. A human, grabbing a beruga, though?"
"Zed, that just doesn't scream criminal to me." Jay said. "And he stayed with Zara, and helped her take care of that kid. There was this other guy, though, that was there when the beruga showed up, and took off. Kind of weaselly looking. That one, now, I would put money on him being up to something."
"Wouldn't be the first time that Sam's ended up going after the wrong person." Zed said. They could work that out later, though, after the surgery was over, and Zara had a chance to tell them what she had seen. "Beruga secure?"
"Down in a cell. So, where's Kay?" Jay asked.
"With Aileen." Zed lowered his head, debating how much he should say. Probably, he ought to leave this up to Kay. It was his story to tell, after all, but in the condition that he was in... And Jay deserved to know what was going on with his partner.
"This doesn't go outside this room, at least not without Kay's permission, but... Sam, Kay's brother, they were separated when Kay joined the MIB, obviously. Twins, they always had a link, until Kay had to break it. Anyway, almost thirty years ago, Sam was involved with this little girl, was getting ready to marry her. They had a baby on the way. Something happened, though, the baby died, and the girl Sam was going to marry almost did too." Zed paused for a moment, looking back over the years. "Catherine, I think that was her name. Anyway, Kay had been blocking his brother, but when that baby died, he got hit full force. Came to me, almost begging to bend the rules, to go to his brother to try to help. It was right after Alpha turned. I made a mistake. Told him no." Easy, it would have been so easy for him to have looked the other way, but...
"You made a mistake. You know you did." Zoe said as she reached out and patted Zed's arm. "And you're sorry for it. Now you just need to make amends."
"Not sure how to make amends. And if that kid doesn't make it..." Could Kay handle having to feel his brother suffering through a second loss? What in the world was taking Elle so long, to get out there with good news